Ultra low floor beds are am increasingly popular solution in UK institutional care for minimising the risk of injuries to users at risk of falls. However, their application needs to careful consideration.
Spacial Awareness for the End User
Many ultra low floor beds have very high head and footboards, and research suggests that the feeling of being trapped between two points within a bed and not being able to see your surroundings can sometimes cause the end user to feel anxious with a need to exit the bed.
The Risk of Unintended Consequences
The approach of having a bed as low to the floor as possible reduces the risk of injuries should an end user involuntarily roll out of bed. However, in many cases, after rolling onto the floor, the user may not have the strength to get to a standing position safely, or even worse, they could be at risk of grabbing hold of nearby furniture and pulling it over on top of them which potentially means that every piece of furniture within the room is a risk to them.
No Side Rails
To allow the bed to get as low as possible, many ultra-low floor beds do not have any rails, so unless the bed is against a wall or a care / nursing home has a 2-1 care ratio, this can restrict the amount of care that can be safely carried out with this type of bed. If you raise the height of this style of bed for care, the user could be at risk from rolling out of the other side as there are no rails. Our research shows that this is often overlooked when purchasing this style of bed.
The Bakare® Dementia Bed vs an Ultra-Low Floor Bed
We have designed our Dementia bed with a number of considerations in mind:
- Improved Spacial Awarenesss – The Bakare® Dementia bed has been designed with a low footboard, so the user can see what’s going on around them and therefore in many cases, feel more at ease.
- Fold Down Side Rails to Reduce Risk & Severity of Falls – The Bakare® Dementia bed has head section rails (with optional padding), which means the end user is unlikely to roll out of the bed onto the floor. However, as the rails are only at the head section of the bed the user still has a safe exit should they feel the need to get out of bed.
- Reducing the Risk of Unintended Consequences – by using head section side rails only reduces the chance of the user involuntarily exiting the bed. However, should the user attempt to get to the standing position, the side rails act as a stable stand assist and reduce the risk from further falls.
Bakare® Beds provide German designed & engineered beds that are homely in appearance which are comfortable for the user and have functionality that enables care to be carried out safely and efficiently. Many of the beds we provided have now been in service for well over 15 years, that are still serving clients well to this very day.
